[subset with different override-maps] gnome-sound-applet controls PCM instead of master volume

[José Alburquerque]

When pressing the up or down volume multimedia keys or clicking on the sound applet and raising the volume (or lowering it) with the mouse, the volume that goes up or down is the PCM and not the master channel of the sound card. I've verified this by running alsamixer in a terminal to see which channel's volume goes up or down.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: gnome-control-center 1:3.1.4-0ubuntu5
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-8.11-generic 3.0.1
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-8-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: amd64
Date: Tue Aug 16 10:14:52 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release amd64 (20091027)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-control-center
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-08-12 (3 days ago)
---
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.24.
ApportVersion: 1.22.1-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC1: jose 7793 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC0: jose 7793 F.... pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'ALS4000'/'Avance Logic ALS4000 at 0xb400, irq 17'
   Mixer name : 'ALS4000'
   Components : 'ALS4000'
   Controls : 30
   Simple ctrls : 20
Card1.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:1 'NVidia'/'HDA NVidia at 0xfe024000 irq 22'
   Mixer name : 'Realtek ALC887'
   Components : 'HDA:10ec0887,1458a002,00100202'
   Controls : 38
   Simple ctrls : 21
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release amd64 (20091027)
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: pulseaudio 1:0.99.3-0ubuntu3
PackageArchitecture: amd64
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-10.16-generic 3.0.4
Tags: oneiric running-unity
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-10-generic x86_64
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-09-13 (0 days ago)
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout lpadmin plugdev root sambashare src
dmi.bios.date: 11/18/2009
dmi.bios.vendor: Award Software International, Inc.
dmi.bios.version: F1
dmi.board.name: M68M-S2P
dmi.board.vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
dmi.board.version: x.x
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAwardSoftwareInternational,Inc.:bvrF1:bd11/18/2009:svnGigabyteTechnologyCo.,Ltd.:pnM68M-S2P:pvr:rvnGigabyteTechnologyCo.,Ltd.:rnM68M-S2P:rvrx.x:cvnGigabyteTechnologyCo.,Ltd.:ct3:cvr:
dmi.product.name: M68M-S2P
dmi.sys.vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.

[David Henningsson (diwic)]

Hi José and thanks for reporting this bug. The normal course of action is to merge them and let master control parts of the slider and PCM other parts. Could you please execute "apport-collect 827393" to give us more information about your hardware?

[José Alburquerque (jaalburquerque)]

apport information

[José Alburquerque (jaalburquerque)]

apport information

[José Alburquerque (jaalburquerque)]

apport information

[José Alburquerque (jaalburquerque)]

apport information

[José Alburquerque (jaalburquerque)]

apport information

[José Alburquerque (jaalburquerque)]

apport information

[José Alburquerque (jaalburquerque)]

apport information

[José Alburquerque (jaalburquerque)]

apport information

[José Alburquerque (jaalburquerque)]

apport information

[José Alburquerque (jaalburquerque)]

apport information

[José Alburquerque (jaalburquerque)]

apport information

[José Alburquerque (jaalburquerque)]

apport information

[José Alburquerque (jaalburquerque)]

apport information

[José Alburquerque (jaalburquerque)]

One other thing I should mention is that upon login, the master volume is always 0 even if I had previously increased it's volume to a high level. In a current session, I run alsamixer and increase the master volume (of the Advance Logic card which I have configured to be the first card) to a high level. I then logout and when I log back in the master volume (of the Advance Logic card) is back to 0.

I think this may be related to this bug, but if it's a separate bug, I'd be glad to file a separate bug.

[David Henningsson (diwic)]

For the ALS card, there is a problem that it only detects mono ports and not the normal "analog-output" port

 ports:
  analog-output-mono: Analog Mono Output (priority 5000, available: unknown)
  analog-output-lfe-on-mono: Analog Output (LFE) (priority 4000, available: unknown)

...the "mono" ports turn master off. It should have detected a stereo port and selected that one instead. We might be able to figure out why through a pulseaudio log: wiki.ubuntu.com/PulseAudio/Log

For the PCM/Master problem, that only applies to ALS and not the ALC887, right?

[José Alburquerque (jaalburquerque)]

"For the PCM/Master problem, that only applies to ALS and not the ALC887, right?"

Yes. It only happens for the ALS card and not the ALC887.

Here's the pulseaudio log though I did not know what I needed to do to reproduce any bug. I hope it's helpful.

[José Alburquerque (jaalburquerque)]

Sorry. This log should be better because I increased the master volume and selected the ALS card before killing pulseaudio and restarting it again for the log. Once pulseaudo started, I ran alsamixer and noticed that the master volume was at 0 so I increased it again. I also ran the "Sound Settings" applet and re-selected the ALS card which was not selected for the default output.

[David Henningsson (diwic)]

Thanks for the pulseaudio log. From the log I can see this:

D: [pulseaudio] alsa-mixer.c: Removing path 'analog-output' as it is a subset of 'analog-output-lfe-on-mono'.

This is a bug in pulseaudio. I don't think we should do that since the subset has a different override-map.

However, as a workaround, what if you change "Connector" in gnome-volume-control to the "LFE on Mono" profile? It seems to me that should work.

[David Henningsson (diwic)]

Filed bug https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=40910

[José Alburquerque (jaalburquerque)]

Yes, the workaround does work, thanks. That shouldn't make any difference in sound right?

[David Henningsson (diwic)]

> That shouldn't make any difference in sound right?

I don't think so, as long as you keep having an "Analog Stereo" profile, don't enable LFE remixing, or anything like that. The ALS card seems to have a "Mono" output jack as well as a "Stereo" output jack, but you're not using the Mono one, right?

[José Alburquerque (jaalburquerque)]

That's right. I'm using the stereo output jack. Thanks for the clarifications.

[Raymond (superquad-vortex2)]

als4000 does not provide dB info

you need to fix the alsa-driver before it can be used by PA

This mean that PA server does not really check the existence of dB info in those volume controls

Simple mixer control 'Master',0
  Capabilities: pvolume penum
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 31
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback 0 [0%]
  Front Right: Playback 0 [0%]
Simple mixer control 'Master Mono',0
  Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined cenum
  Items: 'L chan only' 'R chan only' 'L ch/2 + R ch/2'
  Item0: 'L chan only'